The district court of Nördlingen discontinues the procedures against the parents of the early Christian community “Twelve Tribes” with the decisions from June 12th (delivered on June 18th) and June 12th (delivered on June 19th) because of the lack of danger for both of the youth. The full rights remain with the parents. The authorities stirred up by Fecris are increasingly in distress to account for their rash raid against the community.

An endangerment of both of the youth could not be proven neither through the expert called upon nor any kind of piece of evidence – simply because neither was there danger in the past nor would their be any danger expected in the future for both of the youth. It must be cleared up in a public liability procedure why an obvious discontinuation of the procedure was refused for two months.

The recorded videos by the RTL-reporter Wolfram Kuhnigk that were supposed to prove the alleged “systematic” abuse of children of the community, turned out to be manipulated material. Through the psychological from November 24th 2014 the well known English video forensics expert Ian McArthur comes to the conclusion that the video materialis processed:

Conclusions:

“It is my opinion after over two days of analysis that these videos have certainly been edited in that the running order has been stated incorrectly for the 6 ‘Under Gathering Room’ video clips and the file (time and date modified) data is incorrect and misleading. Also, the start point of all the video clips has been intentionally chosen, as opposed to any form of motion sensing technology. The jumps/breaks I believe are technical errors due to the chosen recording media rather than intentional…”

The expert comes to the conclusion that there’s “strong indications” that the material was edited:

It is my opinion based on my work that there is strong support that the material has been edited.

If the expert could have a close look at the original data files and not mere (copies of) copies, even more indications and proofs with even stronger conclusions could be given. In this there is a failure of the courts, for they never demanded these proofs.

Twelve Tribes:No fair Proceeding,OLG Munich criticizes Delay

Eva and Besorah, two youth of the early christian community “Twelve Tribes”, protested during the traditional Stabenfest parade in the Bavarian Noerdlingen. They criticize the controversial action of the German authorities against the community.

MUNICH, 22.05.2015 (FOREF) – Altogether 40 children of the Christian religious community Twelve Tribes were separated from their parents in September 2013 and put into state custody (see FOREF- report from 01.01.2015). This action was justified by a temporary order of the local court of Noerdlingen, and carried out by a police raid. The Higher Regional Court (OLG) Munich recently criticized the family court about the unusual length of the procedures. Until now only 22 children were allowed to return to their parents. Most of them were old enough to run away from their isolation.

Eva, a youth member of the Twelve Tribes, was one of the 40 children and youth, that were separated from their parents during the police raid and brought to juvenile shelters (Jugendheim). Sabine Riede, a so called cult expert from the FERCIS affiliated Cult Info NRW, urged for this order, since she suspected systematic child abuse in the community. No evidence for abuse in the Twelve Tribes has been brought yet.

After half a year Eva fled from the strict isolation and prison like control of the juvenile shelter and returned back home. Her younger sister however still finds herself in state custody.

My little sister was torn out of our family”, said Eva. “There’s no evidence for abuse. Our parents always loved my little sister very much. (…) She was and is truly a treasure. We want to have her with us again. We will take good care of her. That’s why I fight for her”, the youth explains determinedly.

Together with Besorah, her sister of faith, Eva protested at the traditional Stabenfest in Nördlingen on Monday, the 11.Mai 2015, with signs and fliers against the stigmatization of their community. The fliers, that they distributed, had the title: “What the director of the district court, Mr. Beyschlag, failed to tell you”. Helmut Beyschlag, who is also the press spokesman of the court, wants to initiate an examination concerning a possible violation of the right of assembly, in reaction to the spontaneous demo. Beyschlag does not want to comment the ongoing proceedings concerning the custody of the affected parents.

Chassidah, another seized child who ran away from the juvenile shelter, also turns to the public now, since she wants to point out the improper procedure of the authorities. She has not been abused by her parents in her life, but she feels put under massive psychological pressure by the Jugendamt since she was separated forcefully from her parents. There are still police raids irregularly on the estate “Klosterzimmern” of the Twelve Tribes in Germany. Since she escaped the institution Chassidah lives in “constant fear”, that the Jugendamt wants to separate her from her parents again.

By now the irregularities of the court proceedings in the case of the Twelve Tribes even attracted the attention of the OLG Munich. In the most recent decree of the OLG from 20.04.2015 it was pointed out that since the separation has been going on for almost two years, the collection of evidence has not taken place yet. This had been decided by the district court in September 2013 already. The OLG reminds the district court about the importance of a speedy trial in family cases, for through the almost perennial process duration a “return to the child to the parents is would be complicated more and more” and the possible consequences for the psychological development of the children are to be considered. Besides that, the proceeding of the district court in Nördlingen seems to be problematic from the point of view of art. 6 (worthiness of protection of marriage and family, parental rights of upbringing) and art. 20, par.3 (the obligation of jurisdiction to statute and law) of the constitution for the republic Germany.

The ruling of the OLG realized, that the repeated and explicit desire of the children, to live with their parents, makes the “temporary court order” from September 2013 increasingly questionable.

In a press release from May 19, lawyer Michael Langhans, who represents eleven families of the community before court, explains that the responsible family court Nördlingen ordered psychological evaluations not until one and a half years after (!) the violent separation of the children from their parents. However most of the evaluations are not available yet. Apart from the long process duration of the present case the medical examinations already at the time of the first police raid provided no evidence of abuse of the children of the early christian religious community. The children should have been sent home on that very same day.

In the meantime two children of the community can live again with their parents, who live in Spain. The concerned family briefly lived with the Twelve Tribes in Wörnitz as guests in September 2013. This decision was consensually decided from the parents, the Jugendamt, and the lawyer Langhans in a hearing before the OLG Nürnberg. Thus the first appeal at the OLG was negotiated successfully for the Twelve Tribes.

Lawyer Langhans is confident, that within the next months more rulings in the proceedings about the custody battle can be expected.

After nearly two years of waiting, a 16 year-old boy and 17 year-old girl have been completely released from state custody as a result of psychological evaluations that found no endangerment. Last week the District Court Nördlingen dismissed with decisions (on June 6 and June 12) the proceedings against the parents of the two youth.

The court delayed for 18 months to order psychological evaluations even after it was clear that there was no evidence whatsoever of any physical harm to the teens on the day they were seized. They were only taken because they and their parents were members of the Twelve Tribes.

Why the obvious dismissal of the proceeding was refused for so long however, must possibly be clarified in a public liability proceeding.

Translation

Administrative Court Ansbach: AC Ansbach refused the complaint of the county Donau-Ries as the supplementary guardian of a child of the Twelve Tribes community against the county Ansbach

The 6. chamber of the administrative court Ansbach under the leadership of the president judge Deininger at the administrative court refused the complaint in a cost reimbursement dispute between the county Donau-Ries and the county Ansbach.

The county Donau-Ries was ordered by a court ruling in Sept.1,2015 as a temporary supplementary guardian for a – now 11 year-old child – from the Twelve Tribes community. The complainant asked for help in form of full time foster care from the county Ansbach and brought this child in the knowledge of county Ansbach to a foster family in Ansbach on Nov.9,2013. Just a few days later by order of the supplementary guardian through the district office Donau-Ries the child was picked up from the foster family and brought to a children and youth home. On the same day the complainant informed the district office Ansbach about the move of the child from the foster family to the youth welfare institution and applied for cost transfer.

The involved parties now disputed, who would bear the costs of the accommodation of the child in the children and youth welfare facility.

The court rejected the complaint. Regardless of the question, which youth welfare office was responsible for the help in the case of the concerned child based on the constant change of residence of the family, the complaint was not successful because the removal from the foster family to a stationary institution for youth welfare was not in accordance with the legal requirements. Even though the child expressed the desire to be taken out out the foster family again or diverse discrepancies, there was no sign of child endangerment that would have made a rash interference of the complainant without involving the youth welfare office Ansbach necessary. There was no urgency to for the removal and the complainant didn’t observe the rules for changing the assistance. The costs for this self-obtained measure does not need to be taken on by the defended county Ansbach.

Administrative Court Ansbach, press release, June11, 2015

For the Well-Being of the Child — does this have to be?

We believe that, the German citizens should know, what their tax money is used for. That’s why we want to illuminate the backgrounds of this conflict of costs between the two youth well fare offices – with the question:

For the well being of the child – does this have to be?

…at the medical examination what we already know is determined. Our daughter, Merea, has good health – physically and mentally. There are no signs of abuse. She was not neglected. From the beginning until now she has not stopped to express her desire, to be allowed to go home. Nevertheless: The girl stays in custody; the contact to the parents is prevented.

After two weeks she suddenly arrives at home at 7 o’clock in the evening – she ran away from the foster family. The youth welfare office insists that we would hand her over immediately, with threats of violence. This is the second time she is taken out of her bed under police supervision and brought back to the foster parents, crying. Everything “for the well being” of the child and in the name of non-violent education.

In October our daughter is heard at the District Court. She can hardly wait to express her view point of things and puts her hopes in the court hearing. Right in the beginning the judge asks her: “Is there anything you want to tell me right away?”

The Answer: “That I want to go back to my parents. If I can’t go back to my parents right now, then maybe to my grandmother in Switzerland.”

After the hearing she is disappointed, she feels interrogated. What is going on here? It is a long time and the girl is losing courage.

Arriving at her grandmother, the Swiss girl slowly recovers from the traumatic experiences. We arranged a meeting with the Swiss child protection office. Even though I would have rather talked to them still on Friday, they confirmed me that there is no hurry. So we agreed upon Monday. We are happy a clearing to our situation is in sight. Also our lawyer confirmed, that at this point we don’t need to fear a police action and that according to the Swiss constitution no Swiss citizens is allowed be handed over.

What happened now is connected to greatest pain and horror, for me and my family.

On Friday morning, November 8, 2013 we leave our beloved daughter with her grandmother, while we went to look at several apartments. Together with her grandmother they want to bake bread and cake. We are all relaxed and look forward to the Sabbath. It seems that slowly things go back to normal.

It is about 3 pm. The cell phone rings – unsuspecting I answered it. My disturbed older daughter and loud crying and screaming are heard on the other end: “The police are here, they are getting us…” In an outrageous and violent police action our daughters are being dragged out of the home of my respectable mother, crying and screaming.

I don’t understand how this action could happen for the well being of the child in the name of non-violent education.

After the kidnapped girls were handed over to the German police we waited five long hours on the Lörrach police station. There we were waiting in fear and trembling for the social workers of the Donauwörth youth welfare office. When they arrived at 10 pm they were as hard-hearted and unrelenting as always. The siblings were separated and brought to their destination in two separate cars. We were treated like criminals and held back by police. I can’t describe how I felt when I heard my 10 year-old girl wail, “Please promise me that I’ll sleep with my sister tonight.”

We, parents stayed behind alone. The responsible police man praised our brave attitude. It was a derision. What could we do in face of twenty or more armed officers? During the long ride at night the girls had to bear the sarcasm of certified pedagogues for hours in separate cars, until they were locked up in youth protection facilities.

Revised and updated

The parents of the four children who were taken away permanently by the ruling of the OLG Nürnberg are appealing the decision to the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. There are a number of constitutional violations in the OLG rulings that must be heard by the honorable court. Here are some of them:

The court in its ruling admits that there is no evidence of abuse in the children. On the day of the seizure by the state the doctor found that no signs of physical or any other kind of abuse; the courts could neither find any damage. According to the courts conviction the impending chastisement in the future, are chastisements that do not leave marks.

In its reasoning the court takes the position that all spanking is abuse. The Jugendamt handbook says that all spanking is not abuse: corporal punishments that are connected to afflicting a little force or violence, that don’t hold any risk of injury, and obviously serve as an educative purpose, are clearly to be differentiated from abuse and are regularly not connected to a damage of a child’s welfare.1This supports what Parliament made clear in 2000 that the intent of the law was not to criminalize parents who spank – much less that they would lose their child custody.

The OLG (higher appeals court) had to recognize that the parents meet their children with love and affection and avoid all the education mistakes that the former constitutional judge, Udo di Fabio, brings into consideration: “Corporal violence at certain intensity [is] very obvious to those who want to see, the inhuman child abuse happens in at least as much in “nonviolent” behaviors. Whoever doesn’t speak to his disobedient child for three days might abuse his child in his soul in a far greater way than a considered reaction and moderately give him a “blow” which used to be common. Whoever leaves already little children alone in front of the television or computer, whoever does not confront outstanding misconduct in children or youth based on his own indifference and comfort, whoever demonstrates a lack of bonding, through their own misuse of nicotine and alcohol, or sets a devastating example through disorderly lifestyle, hurts his children enormously…”

The constitutional court will have to answer important questions for all the parents, whether the custody can be taken from parents due to conviction of the court that there’s impending corporal punishment, that doesn’t leave marks, if the parents indisputably raise their children with love, affection and a good example. According to the reasoning of the OLG Nürnberg that does not matter, and all parents who by some educative reason might spank, could lose their child custody.

As the press release of the OLG shows, it treated the parents mainly as members of the Twelve Tribes. The withdrawal of the custody is justified identically for both families. It is a matter of individual families and individual parents, which differ in many ways. They have the warranted right to be treated and judged as individuals, especially before court. The thing they have in common is that they belong to the Twelve Tribes. The OLG Nürnberg bases their justification of the withdrawal of custody on that. It even states clearly that, unless the parents would give up their religious responsibility they could not regain the custody over their children.

When one of the social workers heard about the decision, she commented, “I thought the German government did away with sippenhaft (guilt by association) in 1945, but I see that it was re-instituted in this decision by the OLG.”2

The affected parents see themselves as persecuted for their religious convictions and robbed of their children.

The behavior of the press confirms this suspicion: The press release of the OLG Nürnberg is being spread without even attempting to give the parents a chance to make a statement. The parents are not represented as individuals and bearers of constitutional rights, but vilified as cult-parents through guilt of association.

According to the international criminal law genocide is committed by the one who forcefully takes away children from a religious group, in order to completely or partially destroy the group. Does the collective removal of all the children of the community of the Twelve Tribes, from the infants up to almost adult youth, without concrete evidence of an endangerment of those children and youth, and their religious re-education in state custody not fulfill the fact of genocide?3The Constitutional Court will have to answer these questions.

Guilt by association is a violation of a basic freedom according to the Basic Law.

“Corporal punishments of children are forbidden in Germany according to § 1631 BGB. But not every physical penalty that is connected with minor use of force or violence and does not include any risk of injury and serves for the child obviously as educational purposes are to be clearly differentiated from physical child abuse.” Excerpt from: Manual child endangerment under §1666 of the Civil Code and general social service (ASD); Note 8, Section 5-3 Kindler, Lillig, Bluemel, Meysen, Werner (ed.)) ↩

Sippenhaft is clan guilt. According to Wikipedia it refers to the principle of families sharing the responsibility for a crime committed by one of its members. Practiced by totalitarian regimes such as Communist Russia and North Korea and also by socialist regimes such as National Socialist (Nazi) Germany. ↩

According to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2, genocide is to “d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;” and “e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group,” thereby, with regards to the Twelve Tribes in Germany, accomplishing “c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;” not to mention the second part of “b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.” ↩

In the Augsberg Allgemeine in the first week of June, 2015, Mr. Beyschlag, director of the Nördlingen District Court, said that he will sue the Twelve Tribes because of the posters two of our teenagers carried in the Stabenfest on May 25. It is hard to understand why because Mr. Beyschlag had nothing to do with these posters.

One poster made it clear that in 1939 all German children belonged to the Führer (leader). That poster clearly shows a happy and proud German girl and the caption says, “You, too, belong to the Führer.”1

There is nothing mentioning the Nazis or comparing Mr. Beyschlag to Hitler — nothing at all. The issue is not about the Nazis or Mr. Beyschlag.

You also belong to the Führer

The poster had nothing to do with Mr. Beyschlag, but with the fact that the German government considers children as their own property, even though it is a country that calls itself democratic and supposedly protects human rights.

The point is: Who owns the children – the state or the parents?

Our children were actually taken in the September 5, 2013 Raid against their will and are now imprisoned already for 20 months in youth welfare institutions and in foster families.

The title of the second poster says, “You also belong to the state.” The teenagers that carried these posters can witness to this because they experienced it themselves. They had thought they had the right to live with their family, but the court and the youth welfare office “put them right.”

These girls think that the German people should know the truth about what the family court and the youth welfare office of Nördlingen Donau-Ries do in the name of child protection.The believe that the German should know about what the family court and the youth welfare office of Nördlingen Donau-Ries do on behalf of minors.

The families are not treated individually and it does not proceed in an appropriate manner, if there was actually sufficient suspicion for child endangerment. Instead, all the children were arbitrarily removed their families due to the faith of their parents. This is religious persecution.

Most children are now being held for nearly two years without a fair hearing, in which it is determined whether their removal is still necessary. In all cases there is absolutely no sign of any damage: on the day of the raid the doctors found no evidence of child endangerment. Why did they not sent them home to their parents that same day, as it had been promised to the children by the authorities, if they would cooperate?

Raid on Klosterzimmern 5 September 2013.

Both posters criticized the state control of children. It is exactly that, which these young girls have protested against, because they personally experienced it, being in state custody and foster care by the youth welfare office until they managed to escape. Why can they not say it now?2

We will soon publish the opinion of one of these girls, in which she explains why she did that. Then you can make a judgment yourself. It is not about Mr. Beyschlag, but about the welfare of children.

The Twelve Tribes children who are still in state custody against their will, for them there is no doubt, that children still belong to the state. They indeed remain separate from their parents without a fair, speedy procedure.

Although the medical officers did not find any evidence of any hazard, injury, or abuse with the children, Mr. Beyschlag claimed the opposite during the press conference on September 5, 2013, to the public. Why did he not told you that there was no evidence of child endangerment?

So that is, what the leaflet with the image of Mr. Beyschlag was about, which we handed out. The picture was taken at this press conference. We published nothing untrue or twisted in it. The medical report is in the court files. But to this day, the court has not recognized the truth of it. So it is already proved since the police raid on 5 September 2013, that is from the very beginning of the proceedings.

In this flier, nothing is mentioned about the Third Reich. It should only inform the public about the fact that Mr. Beyschlag has concealed the results actually found. By concealing important facts in the press conference, he also put the community in a bad light. He has nowhere mentioned the results of the medical examination, but only spread the unaudited statements of ex-members from a family court process, which is normally not public in order to protect the children and to avoid that those affected have to suffer under false suspicion.

Since the Family Court does not have the expertise to assess mental child endangerment and because the doctors could not confirm physical child endangerment, there is good reason to ask, “Why are the children still being held in custody?”

Why has the court waited for one and a half years in order to arrange an expert opinion for the children, although it was already in its power immediately after the seizure? The appeals court of Munich has raised the same question. So it is not only parents of the Twelve Tribes who are asking now:

Is a fair trial and respect of the command of speedy trial at all possible?

They were called then “Hitler Youth”. Germany’s youth and Hitler’s youth were synonymous, at least in law. The poster said nothing about the persecution of the Jews by the Nazis. (That insinuation was made by Jan Kandzora, Augsburger Allgemeine on June 3, 2015, not by Community members.) ↩

The Twelve Tribes’ girl on the poster remains in state custody despite there being no evidence whatsoever against her. That is why she says, “Still today, children belong to the state.” She knows from her first-hand experience. ↩